Still Gloomy? Try humor therapy.

 

Yesterday was one of those days. The details aren't as important as the real work that's required to dig deeper and not let the inadequacies of the world get you down. It's not easy though, as well all know. To look the other way, to lead with a smile when a part of you would really like to punch the thieves of happiness right in the gut. Not really, but the thought does bring a certain satisfaction to the mind. 

Regardless of what industry you find yourself, there are people who will cut corners, pretend they don't understand, act sneaky, and outright lie to your face, to their boss, and to a judge. These are the ones who make life difficult for the rest of us who are still holding ourselves up to higher standards. We are the ones who believe in walking the walk, not just talking the talk. We have the wild audiacity to put our faith in the justice system and are naive enough to think that telling the truth is all it takes to set the record straight and win a battle against a much larger, craftier opponent. That's not always the case. 

That's where a good sense of humor comes in. 

Your heart could feel like it's exploding, but you can always imagine it exploding and somehow find yourself laughing because humor can hijack you from a crappy situation and for a brief moment, you actually feel better. 

Funny thing is... you only need a moment on the other side of humor to get your laugh back. To get your thoughts straight. To think your way through a situation to the other side where you can right a wrong. To take a deep breath, adjust your ponytail or goatee, and say to yourself, they're not worth the energy. 

Some days, the heart doesn't break. Instead, it launches confetti without board approval. I think that's the techical term for it. 

You can be standing there, trying to stay calm, while your internal legal department is already drafting a 300-page motion telling the judge all the things the client did very, very wrong. Meanwhile your nervous system is holding an emergency meeting, and your last mature thought just left the building, leaving their phone behind. At least that version of you isn't firing off RFTs (rapid fire texts) trying to solve the crisis before you've even taken stock of where you land in the whole deal. 

Then humor waltzes in, wearing sunglasses, and says, "Okay, but how about we save our energy for better things? What if we shift gears into reverse, and get the heck out of dodge?" 

That's the pivot. 

That's all you need to move in the other direction. A simple little what if thought experiment can shift your perception from wanting to show those tricksters whose boss to going out with friends and letting yourself have a good laugh. 

This isn't forgiveness. It's not denial. It's not a case of pretending everything is fine while your soul is chewing on drywall. The villain doesn't become less villanious. The lie doesn't become less annoying. The shady little corner-cutter doesn't suddenly receive a certificate in ethics and personal growth. 

But you're not going to solve the situation, if all you see is red 💔

So you pivot again. And again. And again. And as many times as is necessary until you find that one inch of fresh air, which is just enough to remember that your heart is allowed to explode into tiny hearts and streamers instead of mind-consuming rage.  

This is humor therapy at its most practical: 

• My heart exploded, but thankfully it was the party-popper I needed.
• My peace of mind left the chat, but it said it might come back for snacks.
• I was going to spiral, but then I remembered I have things to do and a hair tie with more structural integrity than this situation. 
• I adjusted my ponytail like a woman preparing for battle.
• The goatee stroke is the masculine version of opening a philosophy seminar with deep concern.
• My amuse system is not missing. It's in witness protection. 
• The truth will set you free, but apparently it may also require exhibits, affidavits, and three people pretending they never stole the money. 
• My heart exploded, but in a festive way, which means growth. 

Whatever the world sends your way, just remember... you can get mad, you can feel frustrated, you can even plot your revenge, but those options fail to deliver you to the desired results you were hoping for in the first place. So you might as well let them go and get on with your humorous thoughts. 

Happy thoughts absolutely do travel fast, and they travel fastest when you're riding them yourself. 

The 5th Dimension

DEFINITION: 

5th dimensional thinking is the act of projecting trained heuristic abilities onto the quantum lattice work that holds the four fundamental forces of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force) and then superimposing your attention in the direction or manifestation of your choice. 

Understanding that all things are possible expands the realm of possibilities to a blank canvas. As our imagination fills in that canvas, we align with the particles that make up our vision, and by doing so, integrate the essence of those subatomic particles within, which when metaphorically watered, like a plant, grow from the seed or kernel of an idea into a plant that bears fruit. 

A Game of Pretend

The entire world order is built on inside jokes, those Shared Sensory-Verbal Periods where awareness resides in a shared sensory experience, the task is communication and the end result is enjoyment. 

From our first encounter with an individual (or an idea) to each subsequent encounter thereafter comes a number of "first times" ... the first time we think of something, the first time we feel something specific regarding a specific thought, and so forth. 

This endless field of perceptions make up the beginning of a game we have been playing since childhood: Pretend.

Playing Pretend propels us toward vertical independence, the fundamental building blocks of which are built upon imaginary thought coupled with a desire to move things around. We might be the type of person who prefers to put pieces back into a place we have come to believe they fit or we might be the type of person who decides to try their hand at picking pieces up and seeing what it's like to walk around being a puzzle. 

Admittedly, this trial-and-error type of experience is best when shared.

Ideas, thoughts, feelings, experiences, perceptions, visions, epiphanies, explosive sensations: the arsenal of accessories from which we choose to explore our world. 

Life is like a game of sorts... following mazes, accumulating points, treasures, and experience, we either move forward, sail backward, or steady our ships so that the world's crashing waves, roaring calms, and tsunami-like experiences might because of our miraculous efforts manifest into a calm, smooth, endlessly delightful, dizzingly spinning ride... 

...or into an Explosive New Shinning Star ~ 

Or...

...into whatever you like

The experience of pretend resides in the person having it. You might be a delightfully curious person, feeling yourself compelled to follow the White Rabbit ... where ever he may hop. 

Or...

And when you're not out following the White Rabbit on an adventure, you're off reading fairy tales and gathering points for your next adventure ... 

Or... 

Perhaps you're just soaking in all the things you saw on your last adventure... assimilating them and actively adding elements to heighten what you discover until those discoveries become the starting point of a new adventure or brilliant idea. 

Eventually, or suddenly and quite magically, Pretend brings us before the Queen in recognition of our own, unique contribution to the world ~ 

We become part of the ideal we seek when we manifest it in ourselves. 

Question?

How long did you watch the spinning tea cups until you found the loophole? What did you notice first?

For me, the imagine makes me giggle. The dizzying sensation takes be back to childhood when my friends and I would play outside, spinning ourselves until we fell down on the grass laughing and giggling.

Of course, like any good video game, we have multiple viewing options. We can choose to view it critically until the anomaly pops out.

Or...

We can view things creatively until a magic tea cup appears

...offering to grant us three wishes.

Whether we want to be soothed by life or excited by it, however we choose to experience our world, we are doing it so through the veil of pretense. Pretense lies in that which brings us hope, the enduring belief in the attainability of our wishes... playing pretend brings with it confidence, enthusiasm, positive thinking, and excitement about life's possibilities. It is the essential essence needed to thrive and move forward in the world and within ourselves. 

We operate from this stage ~ it is our center by which we learn to be and to act. We are on stage, we are in the audience; we are the characters, the script writer, the director, the financier, the costume designer, the marketer, the negotiator, and all the other -ers one could imagine. We are also the child galloping through the production, ever mindful that we are the one's creating the play.

The Answer You're Looking For

When you go out into the world you know you're going to see something clever, funny and inventive. What you don't expect, however, is to see a remarkably intelligent treatment of the most complicated and confusing philosophical issues of them all: the self. 

Are you still the person you were yesterday, last year or twenty years ago? What about fifteen minutes ago? How do you plan for a future you you don't yet know? Which one is the real you? Does the self remain constant over time and place, or is it something fragmented or fluid? Can you claim yourself as property? A number of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and neurologists have the answers to this question. But how do you go about answering it? Or, have you even bothered? 

Maybe you're not into reincarnated Lamas. Maybe you spend more time thinking about what you've got to do today, or how you're going to spend your weekend. Maybe you just spend your time in pompous pontification, before arriving to the point. Maybe then things make sense. Thereon is a beautiful enlightening thought. But I have to be honest up to this point here I was ready to throw the whole post away or use it as a sleep aid. 

What do your emojis say about you?

 😁Bright eyed & Cheerful

Bright-eyed & cheerful people are the nicest complex people you'll ever meet. They have already ridden the rollercoaster of life and they're going for another ride. 

😂Goodnatured People Who Are Willing to Laugh at Your Joke & in so doing: LAUGH 

Goodnatured people are humorous. They like to laugh, especially with others. When they come upon something funny, they laugh instantly. The random juxtaposition of concepts makes them laugh. Instant laughter is easier to summon when people wear disposable ego filters. The beauty of a manufacturing lite filters or "Absolute Filters" (as we call them) is the welcoming of all novel airborne filters and the ability to direct them towards a special shelf where they are later curated and displayed as objets d'arte. These objects are housed in archives. People delight in the idea of building archives. The delight produces a smile. People who dress themselves in smiles are known to laugh more often and more easily, and in general, end up having a pretty good time of it. 

😅You are Excitable!

You readily admit that you were intensely engaged in a given experience and that your heart is still pounding, in a relaxed, playful, giddy way. You're like, Whew! This type of individual is also game to jump in the pool at the annual Halloween Party. 

😉You're no Dummy

You don't wink. You are a smart, high-achieving go-getter! You're Reiki teacher taught you to embrace the holistic mind-body-emotion-intellect-action-spiritual approach to unleashing your power as you summon the creativity of the Gods.

😌You Genuinely Care About People 

When you ask someone how they're doing, you actually stick around to hear the answer. 

😏You are that person that will never ever tell ... 

You are the friend that shows up. You even stick around and help clean up after the party. 

😘You Love Your Friends 

You love your friends. You're the friend that still gives dorky high-fives. You post funny memes. You care about people and try not to notice your own limitations in the presence of their awesomeness! You are comfortable expressing joy and pleasure. 

And then, 

😎there's always that 1% ... 

The Passionate Little Dinosaur

Hi, I'm a dinosaur. I'm the friend you never had, probably because I'm gonna tell you what I really think if you ask me. I may have a lazy opinion on many topics, but on that which I have an opinion, I would be remiss not to share. To this I readily concede. 

In business parlance it is what's called a bottom line approach. Either I see it, or I don't. Deep down, I think most people are the same way. If we like what we see it is entirely a matter of taste if we pursue it, or as Descartes calls it, it hits upon the passions. 

But what is it that inspires the passions? 

Wonder has a special feature: alone among the passions it doesn't involve any change of heart. The reason for this is that wondering at x doesn't involve value-judgment on x; ~it doesn't prompt one to seek x or to avoid it; ~all it involves is "curiosity about x"; a desire to know more about it. Hence it doesn't involve the heart, on which the whole well-being of our body depends, but only on the brain and the sense-organs which are used in gaining this knowledge. 

This doesn't prevent wonder from having a considerable impact because of the element of surprise, i.e. the sudden and unexpected onset of the impression that alters how the spirits move. This kind of surprise is exclusive to this passion: it normally occurs in most, having a strengthening effect, but only because wonder is intertwined. 

The strength of wonder depends on a movement that starts weak and gradually strengthens. It continues and grows and comes to life, while the original wonder was nothing but wonder. The proverbial snow-ball effect. The enthusiasm from which is steeped in novelty, which the brain likes very much. The strength of wonder and its corresponding effects depends entirely upon one's relationship with novelty. 

Novel objects are soft, less firm, than parts that have been hardened through frequent agitation; the effects produce in them by movements are that much greater. Typically we walk with confidence, upon terra firma without a care in the world. Hard surfaces are familiar. When our feet are met with feathers, the lighter and gentler contact of being tickled on the soles of our feet is almost unbearable to us, simply because it's not part of our ordinary experience. 

A stone and a feather can exist in harmony, so long as they remain independent. A stone will crush a feather, and a feather will tickle the stone until the stone can no longer take it. Anguish arises. This is the second step. 

Anguish is met with astonishment. This surprise has great power to steer Descartes' spirits in the brain, it contains the impression of the object of wonder - so much power that it sometimes drives all the spirits to that place, and gets them to be so busy preserving this impression that none of them carry on through to the muscles ... the upshot is that the whole body remains as still as a statue. A permanent smile etched for all of eternity. 

This is what we commonly call 'being astonished'. Astonishment is an excess of wonder, which is less than enjoyable. When one's tastes and passions are not represented, immobility arises and the person can perceive only one side of the wondered-at-object, namely the side first presented to him or her. If she weren't outright astonished  she could turn the object over, walk around it, or the like, thus learning more about it. 

Unearthing rocks should be handled with great care less they explode. 

It is good to be born with some inclination to wonder, because that increases scientific curiosity; but after we have acquired some scientific knowledge we should try to free ourselves from this inclination to wonder should we feel doing so is clouding our judgment and imposing upon our understanding. 

For excessive wondering there is but one cure: to acquire knowledge to deal with things that seem unusual and strange; ~not by wondering about them but by examining them. 

For excessive wondering there is but one cure: to acquire knowledge 

Therein lies the cool water that extinguishes the explosion. The outcome a measure of good timing, correct understanding, and self-understanding in relation to other. It sounds simple enough but even those equipped with good common sense have no external opinion of their competence. This is what makes it hard to cure "blind curiosity", a disease whose victims seek out rarities simply in order to wonder at them and not in order to know them. They become so full of wonder that things of no importance are as likely to grab their attention as things that it would be actually useful to investigate. 

How Much Energy Does It Take to Eat Ramen Noodles?

Most of everything in our universe is energy. Fortunately, a small amount of matter survived fourteen billion years ago, during the “Big Bang”, when the hot, dense speck that was our universe quickly expanded. Instead of life as we know it being annihilated, leaving us with nothing but energy, we ended up with a world filled with particles, including the particles that allow for human life.

AT FIRST THERE WAS NOTHING

& THEN IT BLEW UP

Approximately 99 percent of our bodies are made up of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. While our cells may regenerate every seven to 15 years, many of the particles that make up our body have existed for millions of millennia. Consider the hydrogen atoms in our body, they were produced during the big bang. The carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms were made by burning stars, and the heavy elements were made when stars exploded. It’s a wonder Hallmark doesn’t make birthday cards for 14 billion-year-olds.

Cosmic rays and high-energy radiation from outer space, constantly pass through our body. These cosmic particles can disrupt our genetics, causing subtle mutations, and may even be a major contributing factor in evolution. Other cosmic visitors such as the neutrinos that the sun releases, constantly zip through our body at a rate of nearly 100 trillion every second. Many of these neutrinos have been around since the first few seconds of the early universe.

Working from the theory that our body is a fourteen billion-year old small-scale mine of radioactive particles, it makes sense to classify our bioenergetic system, including our emotions, in terms of particle physics. Take for example the sensation of feeling creative. Creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas, in the production of an artefact or experience. Imagination is a cognitive process in mental functioning that involves thinking about possibilities and weighing them against alternatives. Imagining uses up our energy reserves. If you’ve ever spent much time creating art or music, or coming up with new ideas for a thesis, you know first-hand how exhausting it can feel to exercise your brain. By the end of it, you’re probably pretty wiped out. Not only do you need a snack to replenish your energy, but most like you just want to relax and recharge.

If you look to the physiology that is our brain (100 billion neurons, forming 100 trillion neural connections – more connections than stars in our galaxy – igniting as you read this sentence), despite only accounting for 2% of the body’s weight, our brains use a whopping 20% of our body’s energy (infants use 44% to process a thought). In other words, a healthy adult brain uses 2-3 times more energy than the heart uses. If the body’s basal metabolic rate is 1500 kcal/day, our brain is using around 300 kcal/day, or 0.0035 kcal/second.

Let’s say it took around 5 seconds to read and think about that last sentence. At 0.0035 kcal/second, it took about 0.02 kcal to process that thought. If you are a person who dreams of someday harnessing your brain’s power to do other things, like cook ramen noodles, let us consider that there is 400 kcal per block, and 150 noodles per block, giving us 2.67 kcal per noodle. Assuming the average noodle is 33cm long, there are 0.08 kcal/cm of noodle. Thus, every thought burns about 0.25 cm of ramen noodle. The future of cooking might lie in unleashing our brain’s energy.

Whether we live to see the day when we can cook our ramen soup just by thinking it so, we probably agree that it takes a good deal of energy to move from one thought to the next – even if all thoughts are created equally.